The Working Class and NeoMalthusianism

Published:PravdaNo. 137, June 16, 1913.

      Signed:V. I..

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 19,

      pages235-237.Translated:The Late George HannaTranscription\Markup:S. RyanPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (1901).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Atthe Pirogov Doctors’ Congress much interest was aroused
and a long debate was held on the question of abortions. The report was
made by Lichkus, who quoted figures on the exceedingly widespread practice
of destroying the foetus in present-day so-called civilised states.

InNew York, 80,000 abortions were performed in one year and there are
36,000 every month in France. In St. Petersburg the percentage of abortions
has more than doubled in five years.

ThePirogov Doctors’ Congress adopted a resolution saying that there
should never be any criminal prosecution of a mother for performing an
artificial abortion and that doctors should only be prosecuted if the
operation is performed for “purposes of gain”.

Inthe discussion the majority agreed that abortions should not be
punishable, and the question of the so-called neomalthusianism (the use of
contraceptives) was naturally touched upon, as was also the social side of
the matter. Mr. Vigdorchik, for instance, said, according to the report inRusskoye
Slovo,[1]that “contraceptive measures should be welcomed” and
Mr. Astrakhan exclaimed, amidst thunderous applause:

“Wehave to convince mothers to bear children so that
   they can be maimed in educational establishments, so that lots can be drawn
   for them, so that they can be driven to suicide!”

“Wehave to convince mothers to bear children so that
   they can be maimed in educational establishments, so that lots can be drawn
   for them, so that they can be driven to suicide!”

Ifthe report is true that this exclamation of Mr. Astrakhan’s was
greeted with thunderous applause, it is a fact that does not surprise
me. The audience was made up of bourgeois, middle and petty bourgeois, who
have the psychologyof the philistine. What can you expect from them but the most banal
liberalism?

Fromthe point of view of the working class, however, it would hardly
be possible to find a more apposite expression of the completely
reactionary nature and the ugliness of “social neomalthusianism” than
Mr. Astrakhan’s phrase cited above.

... “Bearchildren so that they can be maimed” ... For that alone?
Why not that they shouldfightbetter, more unitedly, consciously
and resolutely than we are fighting against the present-day conditions of
life that are maiming and ruining our generation?

Thisis the radical difference that distinguishes the psychology of the
peasant, handicraftsman, intellectual, the petty bourgeois in general, from
that of the proletarian. The petty bourgeois sees and feels that he is
heading for ruin, that life is becoming more difficult, that the struggle
for existence is ever more ruthless, and that his position and that of his
family are becoming more and more hopeless. It is an indisputable fact, and
the petty bourgeois protests against it.

Buthowdoes he protest?

Heprotests as the representative of a class that is hopelessly
perishing, that despairs of its future, that is depressed and
cowardly. There is nothing to be done ... if only there were fewer children
to suffer our torments and hard toil, our poverty and our
humiliation—such is the cry of the petty bourgeois.

Theclass-conscious worker is far from holding this point of view. He
will not allow his consciousness to be dulled by such cries no matter how
sincere and heartfelt they may be. Yes, we workers and the mass of small
proprietors lead a life that is filled with unbearable oppression and
suffering. Things are harder for our generation than they were for our
fathers. But in one respect we are luckier than our fathers.We have
begun to learn and are rapidly learning to fight—and to fight not as
individuals, as the best of our fathers fought, not for the slogans of
bourgeois speechifiers that are alien to us in spirit, but for our slogans,
the slogans of our class. We are fighting better than our fathers did. Our
children will fight better than we do, andthey will be
victorious.

Theworking class is not perishing, it is growing, becoming stronger,
gaining courage, consolidating itself, educating itself and becoming
steeled in battle. We are pessimists as far as serfdom, capitalism and
petty, production are concerned, but we are ardent optimists in what
concerns the working-class movement and its aims. We are already laying the
foundation of a new edifice and our children will complete its
construction.

Thatis the reason—the only reason—why we are unconditionally the
enemies of neomalthusianism, suited only to unfeeling and egotistic
petty-bourgeois couples, who whisper in scared voices: “God grant we
manage somehow by our selves. So much the better if we have no children.”

Itgoes without saying that this does not by any means prevent us from
demanding the unconditional annulment of all laws against abortions or
against the distribution of medical literature on contraceptive measures,
etc. Such laws are nothing but the hypocrisy of the ruling classes. These
laws do not heal the ulcers of capitalism, they merely turn them into
malignant ulcers that are especially painful for the oppressed
masses. Freedom for medical propaganda and the protection of the elementary
democratic rights of citizens, men and women, are one thing. The social
theory of neomalthusianism is quite another. Class-conscious workers will
always conduct the most ruthless struggle against attempts to impose that
reactionary and cowardly theory on the most progressive and strongest class
in modern society, the class that is the best prepared for great changes.

[1]RusskoyeSlovo(Russian Word)—a bourgeois
liberal daily published in Moscow from 1895 to November 1917; it appeared again
for several months in 1918 under the titleNashe Slovo(Our Word).